And lo, he returneth-ed.. Erk.

[Interference]

I'm not *entirely* sure where this post should be going since it covers quite a wide range of topics. So, since it "generalises" I think it might go in General Discussion.. Anyhow, correct me if I'm wrong (known to happen). Anyway..

Hey guys! It's that bloke who was here for a bit then disappeared completely!

Yeah, sorry about that.. I've been working on a snes-style RPG project for the last few months ("Agh!" "Blasphemy!" etc.), a kind of pet project of mine I've been working on for a while using an engine called VERGE 2, if anyone's heard of it. Oh, and I've been fairly internetless (new word there) for the past month.

It's a nice piece of kit but it's a little hard for newbies to get into, can be relentlessly confusing, has a staggering lack of useful documentation and a community so small I could hold an annual meeting in my garage and still have room for the car and a buffet lunch. Which makes things a little difficult if you have a technical question and there are only five people on hand to give even a vaguely useful answer, one of which isn't entirely sane.

Kind of an irony that commercially, adventure games are supposed to have died despite AGS having a huge community of adventure lovers and commercial RPGs are supposed to be booming (Baldur's Gate, Neverwinter Nights, Dungeon Siege etc.) and yet the fanbase for such a program as VERGE is akin to a group of survivors huddling together for warmth in the wake of armageddon.

Anyhow, I digress. I'm back and not only do I bring a fledgling, plot-heavy RPG in tow but I also bring mention that I'm now working on two AGS projects (from time to time. One's large and the other not so large) and news that the Baldur's Gate template I was meddling with a month or so back will soon be worthy of an airing to the public.

On a side note, does anyone have any suggestions for somewhere I could get some free webspace to host a site on games progress, publish my games, upload some screenshots of my lovely work, have a place to upload an avatar to and other stuff? I don't have 'net access from my own computer so I have to use the University's internet access and ship stuff across on a USB keyring so something I could use from just about anywhere (mount Etna, for example) would be ideal. Oh, and something without pop-ups. Banners are fine, I just can't stand pop-up advertisments.

On a side note, well done in once again getting a mention, nay a double-page spread, on AGS in a Future Publishing magazine (last time, PC Gamer plugged Pleurghburg). GamesMaker is on my list of recent purchases, although I'm not entirely sure I can recommend it (even if it did have AGS on the coverdisc). The whole affair just seems a little.. half-arsed. No, quarter-arsed.

The coverdisc is littered with instances of random copy-pasting that doesn't make any sense, many tutorials enclosed will confuse and befuddle those new to the "black art" of games making, the videos from 3DBuzz on the cover disc are ment to be a series of tutorials and there's less than half of them there and certain bits and pieces (reviews, the clown modelling piece etc.) have been blatantly ripped out of PC Format and 3D World and stuck haphazardly into GM in the hope that no-one will notice. This is recycled journalism of the lowest order and most certainly not worth six quid.

"Oh well, at least it *looks* nice!"

Oh, and I can't stress enough: I REALLY need some webspace.

Ciao,

Fred "Interference" Burbidge

[Nacho]

Welcome back to the AGS activity...

[Pessi]

Welcome back, Interference!

For the webspace, I think "good" and "free" are really hard to find together. I don't really know any specific hosts... I think you could either try to find one with Google or check out where other AGSers are hosting their homepages and avatars. Mine are on an account I got from my previous school, so no help there, I suppose.

I just ran a quick search on free hosting and this is an example of probably the better hosting services you can have for free. http://www.doteasy.com/ . I hope someone with experience about this shows up but meanwhile, perhaps you could check the free services out.

[taryuu]

netfirms.com
50megs.com
freewebs.com
iwarp.com